Political Satire: Having trouble surviving these times? You’re not alone. Join us in columnist John F. Di Leo’s exploration of an alternate universe, where we imagine the impossible:
Joe Buckstop, an aging, corrupt old fool, somehow becomes president in his basement, and every night, an aide has to bring him his soup and discuss the events of the day as he prepares to receive his nightly meds…
Dateline, February 12. Begin Transcript:
“Good evening, sir! Ready for some soup?”
“Oh, boy am I ready for some soup.”
“Well, then, here you go, sir: Pasta fagioli!”
“What the heck is that?”
“You know… Italian noodle soup. Pasta fagioli.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Hmmm… maybe you’ve heard it pronounced pasta-fazool?”
“Huh? That’s a food?”
“Well, sure. Pasta fagioli is also pronounced pasta-fazool. It’s an Italian bean and beef vegetable soup, usually a tomato base, with lots of noodles. It’s usually so thick it can be served on a plate like pasta if you don’t want to use a bowl.”
“Wow. All these years, I’ve thought Pastafazool was an exclamation, you know, slang. Like Dammit or Oh Hell or something.”
“No sir. Weren’t there any Italian families where you grew up, sir?”
“Sure! I grew up in Scranton. Did you know I grew up in Scranton?”
“Yes sir, you’ve mentioned it sir.”
“Oh. Well, I guess I’ll try this stuff. Man. Never knew this was a food. Pastafazool is a food. Well if that doesn’t beat all…”
“So, sir… how’s the day going? Fire anybody today, sir?”
“Huh? No. Why would I fire anybody?”
“Well sir… You heard about that deputy press secretary, right?”
“No… what deputy press secretary?”
“Well, sir, one of your deputy press secretaries…”
“Well, that wouldn’t be mine… that would be one of Jen’s deputies.”
“Doesn’t she work for you, sir?”
“Well, yeah…”
“Well then, if she works for you, then her deputies work for you too, right, sir?”
“Oh, I umm… uhh… No. I think that level is Hatched, son.”
“Umm, sir… I hate to correct you, but … No, sir, that level is not Hatched.”
“You sure?”
“Yes, sir, I’m sure.”
“Oh.”
“So anyway, this guy has been having an affair with a certain reporter…”
“Oh oh. Gay, huh?”
“No, sir, he’s not.”
“Oh, so she’s gay, huh?”
“No sir, she’s having an affair with him.”
“Oh, she turned out to be one of those, umm.. those boys who dress like a girl? And our deputy press secretary found out while they were in bed or something? And the police were called when there was a domestic…”
“NO !!! Please, sir, pay attention, none of that is right. It’s nothing like that.”
“Oh. Well that’s good, anyway, I guess. Would’ve been interesting, though, anyway…… So they’re normal, huh?”
“Yes sir, they’re normal. Jen’s deputy is a straight guy, and the reporter is a straight girl. And they’re having an affair.”
“So what’s the problem? Good for him, right? What’s wrong? Is she a dog, or something?”
“No sir, she’s cute.”
“Oh, that’s a relief. Better looking than Jen, huh?”
“That’s not hard, sir.”
“Good point. I think she cuts her own hair … with kindergarten paper scissors…”
“Anyway, sir… here’s the scandal. She covered the campaign, and some other national reporter – a female national reporter – who covers the White House – found out about their affair and she was going to write about it, so HE TOLD HER NOT TO.”
“Why? What’s he ashamed of? Didn’t you say she was cute?”
“That’s not the point, sir. He wanted to keep the affair secret, and he told this other reporter not to reveal it.”
“So he’s being gallant. He’s being a gentleman, not kissing and telling. Good for him.”
“No sir. He wasn’t gallant, sir. At all. He yelled at her, cursed her, threatened to get her fired or blacklisted or something, and threatened her of being jealous that somebody wanted to go to bed with his girlfriend instead of her!”
“Oh my.”
“Yes. Look at it this way, sir, it was a rather inappropriate way for a representative of the administration to talk to a reporter, sir.”
“Oh. Yes. I guess so. If you look at it THAT way…”
“What other way is there to look at it, sir?”
“Good point. So this happened today, huh?”
“Well, no sir… it happened three weeks ago. Right after the coronation.”
“The what?”
“You know, January 20.”
“Oh.”
“So now it’s all over the press, and Jen’s been forced to defend why she didn’t fire him. She finally gave him a week’s vacation without pay.”
“A vacation?”
“Well, she called it a suspension, but … when you live in Washington and you get a week off work but you don’t lose your job… it’s really a vacation, you know?”
“I see what you mean.”
“So now, all Washington is talking about it. Everybody’s horrified that Jen would disobey a direct order from you like this.”
“Huh? What order? I didn’t know about this until now! I didn’t know about it until my soup aide told me! I’m innocent! You can’t impeach me over this! It’s unconstitutional, DAMMIT !!!”
“Um… sir… calm down.. eat your soup. That’s not what I meant, sir.”
“Oh? It’s not?”
“No sir. All Washington is up in arms over the fact that you specifically said, your first week, that if anyone in your administration was ever disrespectful, intolerant, rude, etc, they’d be fired on the spot.”
“Why would I say a thing like that?”
“God alone knows, sir. But nobody ever knows why you say most of the things you say, sir.”
“What’s that?”
“Um, never mind, sir. Anyway… since you said that if anybody in your administration was guilty of sexual harassment, they’d be fired, and then nothing happened at all for three weeks to this guy, and then when the secret got out, all Jen did was give him a week’s vacation… well sir, it’s not looking good, you know?”
“Oh. I guess not.”
“So when I arrived tonight, sir, I was kind of worried that you’d be in a bad mood because of this. I thought you’d been in meetings over the damage control all evening. I never dreamed you hadn’t heard about it, sir.”
“What can I do now?”
“I don’t know, sir. I suppose you could tell Jen to fire him.”
“Oh, I can’t do that. I can’t tell Jen what to do.”
“You can’t?”
“No, the Doctor said I can’t fire anybody.”
“Oh.”
“And I can’t disobey the Doctor again. The last time… oh, some of the bruises still haven’t healed.”
“Well, this thing isn’t going to blow over. I think the administration is probably going to have to do something for this Axios reporter that he threatened.”
“Hmmm… is SHE cute?”
“Oh, yes, sir.”
“Well, maybe I could offer her a private interview with me to make up for it… we could give her this secret address, and I could wear my nice blue suit, and…”
“OH GOOD HEAVENS NO, SIR !!!”
“Oh, well, it was an idea.”
“You know what, sir? I think maybe they were right to not bring you in on this one. Plausible deniability. The less they tell you about what’s going on, the better off you are…”
“That’s exactly what I’ve been telling my staff my whole career, son.”
“Here, let me get you some more soup, sir. Heaven help us.”
Copyright 2021 John F Di Leo
Excerpted with permission from “Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volume One,” from Free State West Publishing, available in paperback or eBook exclusively on Amazon.
John F. Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based international transportation and trade compliance professional and consultant. A onetime Milwaukee County Republican Party chairman, he has been writing a regular column for Illinois Review since 2009. His book on vote fraud (The Tales of Little Pavel) and his political satires on the current administration (Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volumes I and II) are available only on Amazon
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